Bond response to NAO report on Official Development Assistance cuts

Tomorrow the National Audit Office (NAO) will be releasing its assessment of speed and scale by which the government reduced its Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending, from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income (GNI).

Responding to the report’s findings, Abigael Baldoumas, Policy & Advocacy Manager at Bond, the UK network for NGOs said:

“This report confirms what we feared from the outset. The scale and speed of the cuts – £4.2 billion in a matter of months – meant decisions were taken without sufficient consultation with FCDO’s partners or any consideration for the harm they would cause marginalised communities, undermining both UK aid’s value for money and its contribution to alleviating poverty. We now know just how opaque the process was, how rushed and outsized the cuts to bilateral programmes were, and have more detail about where the cuts fell. The UK government must learn from its mistakes and implement the NAO’s recommendations, including assessing the impacts of the cuts, improving transparency and preparing for a return to 0.7%.”